BONSALL  She went from wrestling boys to wrangling horses. America Morris now tends to horses on her farm, but what garnered her the spotlight in 1985 was becoming the first girl in the nation to pin a boy during a varsity wrestling match.

The Clairemont High sophomore was booked on the “The Tonight Show,” where she demonstrated a half nelson on Johnny Carson, the same move she performed on Madison High’s unsuspecting Russell Cain 21 seconds into the second period of their match.

Her story appeared in People magazine, Sports Illustrated, the L.A. Times and on the front page of the San Diego Union.

Morris’ foray into wrestling wasn’t seamless. While she was always athletic and her mother was used to signing sports waivers, Delia Morris wanted her daughter to attend charm school.

“I just wanted to be a tomboy,” America said.

While participating in Clairemont wrestling coach Gerry Knuppel’s conditioning class to prepare for the swim season, she asked if she could join the wrestlers.

“One day, she was rolling around with the boys during practice and was doing pretty well,” recalled Knuppel. “She asked if she could give it a try and I said why not?”

Eventually, she earned a varsity spot. But first up was earning her mother’s approval.

“I didn’t tell her I was trying out for the wrestling team,” said Morris. “I slipped her the waiver and she just signed it. When she found out I was on the wrestling team, she completely flipped.”

Delia Morris is from Guasave, a small, rural town in the Mexican state of Sinaloa described by America as “a town of dirt and more dirt.”

America, so named after the country that afforded her mother newfound opportunities, was going to take advantage of this one.

“Wrestling was against everything that she wanted me to be,” said Morris. “But here I was with an opportunity, so she couldn’t say no because that’s why we were here — to do things that we couldn’t do anywhere else.”

But that opportunity didn’t come without a price.

“Nobody supported me at first — from the principal to the first referee at my first match,” she said. “Everyone was against it. The entire school, the team, everyone. They just couldn’t believe what I was doing. Initially, they mocked me. They made fun of me. I was miserable.”

Morris said then-Clairemont Principal William McFadden pulled her out of class and strongly discouraged her from joining the team. But all 107 pounds of her refused to be taken down. She pointed out there was a precedent allowing girls to participate in contact sports.

The precedent was Kerry Hanley, who wanted to try out for the Mira Mesa High wrestling team. She petitioned the school board in November 1985, prompting the San Diego Unified School District to adopt the policy change.

Morris then had to contend with gender-related barriers. What would she wear? How would she weigh in? What about her hair? What about the locker room?

She wore an additional shirt under her singlet. She weighed in separately under the supervision of a designated female. She had to cut her hair. And she couldn’t participate in the pre-meet pep talk that took place in the boys’ locker room.

“I wasn’t allowed in there,” she said.

And then there was the ref before her first match, who inspected her hair and nails. Her long hair was tied back with a rubber band and tucked into her headgear.

“He did not want me to wrestle,” she said. “It was very, very obvious. He said that I had to forfeit my match because the rubber band could snap and hit my opponent in the eye.”

Morris found some surgical scissors in a first aid kit. Her teammates clamored for the chance to snip her locks.

“They chopped my hair off right there,” she said.

Morris lost her first match on points, but her coach remained steadfast in his support. Knuppel told her he was not going to treat her like a boy or a girl, but as an athlete.

He recalled the drama of Morris’ one varsity season where she went 5-5 and made headlines.

“There were tournament directors who tried to prevent us from participating in their tournaments, parents who would not allow their boys to wrestle her, news reporters who told me they did not feel it was right but they were told to cover the story,” Knuppel said. “As each match passed, (Morris) became more and more accepted. By the end of the season many minds had changed. And some have still not.”

Morris, 42, is now the mother of two college-age children. She lives in Valley Center and owns Silver Sunset Farms in Bonsall, where she boards and trains the bloodlines of Secretariat, Barbaro, Storm Cat, Northern Dancer and Azeri. She competes in show jumping aboard Riki Doodle Dandy, a great grandson of Seattle Slew’s that she bought for $25,000.

Morris, who won the Greater San Diego Hunter Association championship in 2006, won five jumping championships in 2010. She will be competing next at the Southern California Horsemans Council at Vista Palomar Riders on July 30-31.

The parallel of Morris competing in a ring and against the clock — aboard a horse or against a wrestler — is not lost on her.

“With wrestling you’re fighting to win,” she said. “With horses, you have to feel the same way when you and your horse jump the fence.”

Back in 1985, she was also fighting for acceptance. Girls’ participation in wrestling today has hit an all-time high. In 2009-10, there were 6,134 participants nationwide, sufficient numbers to where most girls now wrestle among themselves instead of having to compete against boys. Texas and California continue to have the strongest girls wrestling presence at the high school level.

This year’s first girls state championships in California brought into focus the historical significance of what Morris accomplished.

“I didn’t realize the effect that it would have for other people in the future,” she said.